Some currently available evaporative cooling towers are designed to have a hot liquid introduced therein through one or more inlets (e.g., one or more spray nozzles or sprinkler heads) that are located at a relatively elevated positions within the tower. As drops of the liquid travel downward through the tower under the effect of gravity, the liquid is cooled by relatively low-temperature air that is either naturally or forcibly circulated (e.g., using one or more fans) throughout the interior of the tower.
In order to enhance the heat transfer between the aforementioned liquid and air, some currently available cooling towers include a plurality of elongated, horizontally arranged splash fill bars that are dispersed throughout the interior of the tower. During operation of the cooling tower, drops of the liquid fall onto a number of these splash fill bars as the drops make their way from the top to the bottom of the tower. Each time that a drop of the liquid falls onto a splash fill bar, the drop either reforms into a new drop or, with sufficient impact, the initial drop may reform as two or more smaller drops. The initially drop may either bounce off of the bar immediately as one or more new drops or may temporarily spread out in the form of a liquid film on the splash bar surface. In the latter instance, once a sufficient amount of water has accumulated to form new drops on the bottom and/or edges of the bar, these new drops are released from the bar and fall within the cooling tower until they contact another splash bar and the process repeats.
Whether new drops form immediately or pursuant to the formation of the aforementioned film, new exterior drop surfaces are formed. Since the water on the surface of the new drops is warmer than the water that was on the surface of the previous drops, the temperature gradient is increased and the heat transfer between the liquid and circulating air is thus enhanced. Once the liquid reaches the bottom of the tower, it is collected in a relatively cool state, typically in a basin or at a drain.
in currently available cooling towers, the plurality of splash fill bars are supported by a grid made from a fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP), polypropylene (PP) or steel wire. In order to increase the area of contact between the grid and splash fill bars and to thereby delocalize stress that may lead to damage of the fill bars, the splash fill bars typically rest upon “benches” that are manually installed on the grid. Since a commonly sized cooling tower may include 20,000 or more of these “benches,” the labor costs involved with the building current cooling towers can become substantial.